Wireless communication devices, such as cellular telephones, cellular-enabled tablet computers, and other portable wireless devices with cellular communications capability can include wireless circuitry that can provide for communication in accordance with various wireless communication protocols. For example, cellular telephones, typically, include wireless personal area network (WPAN) radio frequency (RF) circuitry, such as Bluetooth® circuitry, and wireless local area network (WLAN) RF circuitry, such as Wi-Fi circuitry, to supplement cellular RF circuitry to provide a broad spectrum of communication services. WLAN connections via a WLAN access point, typically with a broadband wired backhaul, can provide high throughput to the wireless communication device and offload cellular access network equipment. (The use of the term “access point” or AP herein generally refers to a central wireless communication device that acts as a hub for a wireless network to interconnect multiple wireless communication devices.) The wireless communication device can be configured to use WLAN connections, when available, over cellular connections, particularly for high data volume and high throughput rate transfers. Wireless cellular service providers are also adding services to permit WLAN voice connections and/or to seamlessly transfer voice connections between WLAN and cellular networks. Additionally, wireless communication devices serve as multimedia capable wireless interfaces to consume various forms of streaming media, to access information (such as via the Internet), to provide location based services (such as maps and directions), to interact via social media applications or to connect via higher quality audio and/or video (such as FaceTime®) with others, to download applications and/or updates, etc. These advanced communication services benefit from higher data throughput, and as such, each generation of wireless communication device continues to add new features including supporting evolving wireless communication protocols that offer increased maximum throughput data rates. Higher data rates often require additional wireless circuitry and/or higher bandwidth communication that can result in increased power consumption by the wireless communication devices when configured to support higher throughput operation. Power savings, especially for limited battery reserve wireless communication devices, can be as important to users as higher throughput data rates.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which standardizes wireless local area network (WLAN) communication protocols, such as the 802.11 family of standards, provides for power save modes as part of the 802.11n and 802.11ac wireless communication protocols. For the 802.11n wireless communication protocol, a Spatial Multiplexing (SM) Power Save mode provides for reduced power consumption at a wireless communication device by decreasing the number of spatial streams communicated between the 802.11n compliant AP and the wireless communication device. Similarly for the 802.11ac wireless communication protocol, the number of spatial streams can be reduced as well as the bandwidth occupied for communication can be reduced to conserve power. To balance higher data throughput capabilities, as required for applications or particular operational states, with power conservation, by using more power efficient configurations at the wireless communication device, the battery life of a wireless communication device can be extended to last longer.